Took the opportunity to play with GIMP a little today since Mom had the baby while Rosie and I had lunch (and she was keeping her until dinner). Thought I’d post and share…
(this is cropped for a 5x7)
Bye-bye summer…hello fall!
Well, it may not have been a warm summer (there was that one week…) and I guess it’s still here for another couple of weeks but for all intents and purposes, fall starts today. I think we made the most out of our last summer weekend; here’s a recap:
Friday 
Saturday
Saturday should probably be considered the unofficial start of fall since Michigan opened up the season against Western. Ok, I admit it, I was dreading this a little. I didn’t know if I could take another fall where I was apathetic about Michigan football. I didn’t even care last year if I watched the games, that’s how bad it got. But I have hope this year. The offense isn’t completely offensive where was last year it was completely offensive (read the two meanings into that word and you’ll get what I’m saying). Seriously, last year I was the absolute biggest critic of the Spread Offense because it was ridiculously bad. I still prefer the Pro Set and it was just one game, but I have more hope than last year and it actually looks like an offense. Keep your fingers crossed…
Sunday
Started the day off early with a little harvesting in the garden. Need to head back today and need to spend a day canning some stuff. Waited too long on the potatoes, some were giant and others actually fused together to form crazy giant Mr. Potato heads. Something is killing our plants right now, they’re getting brown spots and dying off. Not sure what it is (bug or disease) but it’s threatening to end our growing season quite soon. Second round of corn looks like it’s about ready. I think it will be hard to use this summer as a judge for next year’s garden just because it wasn’t really warm. Ever.
After gardening it was a quick nap for Sophie and then off to Ingrid’s for a cookout. The whole crew was there (except Connie and the kids…apparently the commute from Florida can be a pain…) and it was a nice day to just hang out. Sophie was pretty good for the day, especially since she really didn’t nap much before. Other than just kind of sitting there and chewing on things, she got a chance to show off her army crawl (can’t just throw any old toy out there for her to get, it has to be something she’s not supposed to have and then she’ll really move!)
After Tom went to the gym on Sunday we had a few people over (Jamie and Keri, Mike and Stephenie, and later on Dwayne and Marsha) for a little Apples to Apples action. It’s usually a funny game and it started out with giggles on the first card. Mostly it seemed like we were poking fun at Mike (Wow…wow… – …wow) and Tom (well, the Mississippi River thinks it’s the best river around). There were definitely a lot of laughs for that game – it was a great way to wind down the weekend.
Monday
…and that brings us to today. I think we’re heading back over to the garden to finish up some harvesting. Other than that, Rosie is coming up tonight with Cali to take her to the vet up in Tawas to get a tooth pulled (and a cleaning while she is under). It is ridiculous how much more expensive that stuff is in the city and opposed to up here. When Zeke needed his pulled (was it getting run over by a car or kicked by the horse that broke it…it’s hard to tell) the vet down in the city wanted to do a root canal. A root canal?? Are you serious!? He’s lived a pretty good life with one less tooth so I’m glad we just got it pulled. Tomorrow Sophie and I will hang out with Rosie for the afternoon and then it’s time to start waiting by the phone for someone to call for a sub. 6-12 Social Studies/History anyone? Anyone? no? ok then…maybe next time.
Cruisin’ for a Bluesin’
yeah, the titles are the favorite part of the post for me…
Sophie’s been a little clingy lately – I think because of the teeth. I’m not sure, but it seems like she’s trying to get all 4 top front teeth at once. She got her left one that’s just left of middle and it looks like the opposite one is getting close but her right middle one might come in first. All in all, it makes for an inconsistent little baby.
Not much is new around here. Tom built some nice shelves for the basement so I finished organizing some stuff down there…now I just need to bring some more stuff back from Mom’s…
Garden is going well – in spite of the fact that we had about 5 days of summer. I’m not complaining too much, I actually enjoy fall weather, but part of the reason I like Michigan is that it usually gives me just enough of summer or winter to make me sick of it and then I look forward to the next season…not so much this year.
Sophie is still working on her army crawl…actually, she only works on it if there is something forbidden out of reach so when I want her to show off her skills I just put a remote or phone just out of reach and watch her go for it. She might actually be saying DaDa and DaoDao (dog?) because she does make those sounds when Tom or Zeke come around. Or maybe that’s just her excited sound.
The start of school is just around the corner and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any openings (but I sort of expected that I guess). Another year of subbing is not very appealing, but what choice do I have? I know things will turn around eventually, but I really do wish I could get into my own classroom.
Scoot scoot scoot
Well, the days of the immobile baby are fast drawing to a close! Sophie is able to get up on knees and elbows and rock (and usually get one good push forward but hasn’t figured out to move the arms) – once she makes the initial push she resorts to army crawl. She doesn’t go far yet, just far enough to grab whatever toy was previously out of reach. So my big plan for the weekend? Moving the shelf into the bedroom, the chemicals into the hall closet, and basically crawling around my house to see what else is going to be a problem!
I had other things I wanted to write about but for whatever reason my brain just went dead today. Maybe it’s the weather, not sure really.
I need to load more pictures up and maybe some video too if I get ambitious…but that will probably wait until next time.
Oh! I remember one of the things: canning is going good and we expect tomatoes soon (that is if we could have a little bit of summer and don’t jump right into fall) so we’ll be even busier but we’re running out of pint jars so if you or anyone you know would like to donate your unused and unwanted glass pint jars, we’d gladly take them off of your hands!
OK, that’s about it for writing motivation at the moment, but I’ll try and get pics up later.
I’m afraid we’re gonna have to put her down…
Enjoy the pics. I’m working on getting them up to Kodak. I need a rainy weekend with nothing planned! I really like this one of Zeke. He’s been such a good boy with her – he always lays by her when I put her outside (but he might just want to steal the blanket!)
Sleep, sweet, sweet sleep
More harvesting from the garden – this heat should really help the tomatoes. Corn is coming along nicely. Lots of plans for next year.
Took Sophie swimming again…she absolutely LOVED it. It was funny because she’d just be kind of sitting there and you’d say “swim” and she’d kick and kick and move her arms. If you leave her upright, she likes to splash too. She’s big into the leaning/reaching for something so in the pool that means going for more water. She’s definitely a water baby – I wish I would have had my camera to capture it. Maybe we’ll be lucky and summer will continue for a few more weeks and we can go again!
Let me know what you think of posts/pictures/and the new format.
Savor the moments…
I was going to write this post anyway, but in light of the events today it takes on a new meaning…
When we were golfing today, I was struck again by how short life is and the fact that we only get to do it once (that we know of at least). If you only had a year, a month, a week, or a day left to live, would you live it like you currently are? Would you change your life? Sometimes you need to take stock and savor the moments and make sure that you can live a life free of regrets.
Some of my savored moments today:
- sharing a joke with Tom
- watching the reeds blow in the wind
- marveling at Sophie’s hands
No pictures this time…
Wow! What a couple of weeks!! The Pirate Fest went off with only a few minor hitches (but hey, who can control the rain??) It was a great event – I can’t wait to see how the numbers compare to years past and think of ways to keep getting better. Pictures will be up soon, but I’ve got a few other things to catch up on first.
Sometimes I have to just sit back in wonder at Sophie and how much she’s changed in less than 7 months. She went from hardly ever opening her eyes to sitting up and smiling and laughing. Still not much of a talker (nothing discernible, but it does sound like she says “ball” when she’s chewing on the ball). She likes to make noises with the toys in her mouth more than just trying to copy me.
Her palate is expanding as well. Now that she’s figured out how to eat pieces of food, we give her little bites of just about everything. So far, she’s liking most everything. She really likes the yellow squash from the garden – which is good because we’re gonna have a ton of it. I pureed some the other day when I was on a baby food-making kick and she ate it right up. I also pureed some blueberries that were left over and as a bonus could save the water as blueberry juice to give her to drink or to add to cereal. Did the math on blueberries; they have to be $3.00/quart or less to be cost effective. The stuff that comes from the garden is obviously worth converting, but when buying stuff I want to make sure that I’m actually saving money by making her food because if I’m not then I’ll just save the time and buy the jar.
Harvested again yesterday. Pulled the rest of the green onions – just chopped and froze most of those for next year. We dug up a potato mound because it looked like one of the plants was dying and most of the potatoes were large and ready to go. Need to read more about potatoes though because I still don’t know much. Thinned out carrots again and brought a bunch home…going to make chicken and dumplings today with the carrots and potatoes. All we need to do now is raise some chickens and it’ll be a really homemade meal! For this round of squash I just sliced it, blanched it for 3 minutes (and then threw it in an ice bath for about 5), and through it in a bag to freeze. I don’t know how long Sophie is going to like pureed foods so I don’t want to have a bunch that I can’t use. I can always put this bunch in the food processor or I can just heat it up and cut it into chunks for her to eat like that. Tomorrow I’m going to try a new recipe for the squash: fry it in EVOO with onion (from garden), green onion (from garden), green pepper (from garden), and snap peas (from garden) and some seasoning. I’ll have to check and see if we have any fresh parsley – that’d go good with it.
Well, enough of a break! Back to the monster list that I’ve created for myself today. Hopefully I can get through most of it!
Just a Flingin’
Tom and I went out to the Pavilion and Muggshots on Saturday night (Pam and Steve were staying here so they kept an eye on Sophie). It was a typical Car Show Saturday night. It was great to see everyone that we did since we don’t usually get out much and there were more people out than usual. Muggshots was crazy-busy; I kept wondering what the fire code was on the place because it was absolutely packed!
On Sunday we headed up to the car show for a bit to walk around. There didn’t seem to be as many cars as last year but the weather could have had something to do with it. We had some vicious storms off and on all weekend and some steady rain. The rain was definitely needed – we just would have preferred it waiting a couple of days! Next on the agenda was Andrea’s bridal shower. The rain showed her no mercy as well and her outdoor shower was held for the most part inside. I won the “Pin the Mustache on the Mexican” game, so that was nice. :-)
It’s crazy how much Sophie seems to grow (not always in size, but just developmentally too) every day. She’s doing a great job eating Cheerios and other more “solid” foods now that she’s figured out how to close her lips to keep the food from coming out. And now that she’s figured out how to close her lips she’s been chewing on her bottom one for the last couple of days. She’s also a pro at sitting up now, only falling backwards every now and then. I can’t wait to see what she can do next!!
I forgot…
I forgot to mention that Sophie is finally rolling from her belly to back again. Mom was right, I find her in all kinds of places in her crib. This morning she was sideways at the foot of the bed. Crazy kid.
Time Flies When It’s Summer!
Grant and Bobbie were down here for a little bit last week – we went golfing on Thursday and I golfed my best nine ever: a 49 on the front of the Breeze. That includes a birdie on the par 4 9th. We don’t really need to talk about the back 9, the front 9 is what’s important! This followed a great night of softball 
On Sunday we went canoeing with Tom and the Kids, Mike & Erin, and the Corey Clan. We did tip once…we don’t need to get into the finger pointing match but I’ll just say that Tom was in the back :-) But we did have fun, it was a good trip and best of all, it was free!
Today was busy again. Tom and I went to the city to celebrate our 4th anniversary. It was a typical date-day: saw Transformers and went to dinner at Outback. We tried to go to Old City Hall but it didn’t open for dinner until 5pm. Movie was good – definitely a good one to see in the theater. It was good to get out just the two of us and do something too. We’ve been trying to keep doing things here and there – it’s nice to relax and it gives us a chance to just worry about us, not the little attention-monster.
Flanagan Fling, two bridal showers and bachelorette parties, Grant’s little shindig, car show, and probably more this weekend and next weekend is Pirate Fest. Oh my, where has the summer gone?!
Walkin’ and Talkin’
Sophie’s back to her “walking”. She did this up until a few months ago and then stopped (I think it’s one of those newborn reflex thingies). Anyway, now when you hold her hands she is starting to take steps forward. Right foot, left catches up. Right foot, left catches up.
Oh and the talking that she does! She has been very vocal lately, especially if she’s chewing on something. Speaking of chewing, her new thing is to bite the spoon after she takes her bite off of it.
She’s been a good kid lately (minus the 5 am wake-ups) so having those teeth through must be making a difference in her mood.
We went to Charlie’s birthday party on Saturday – I can’t wait another year or two when the kids can start playing together. We got a picture of them all together: Keegan, Charlie, Brennan, Emma, and Sophie. If they’re all still friends in 18 years it will make a great before and after graduation photo!
The garden is coming along quite nicely. We are getting a yellow bug though and I’m a little worried about that.
Today is Sophie’s 6 month birthday and tomorrow she has a doctor’s appointment – complete with shots :-(
I’m working on getting pics updated to ofoto and changing my blogger layout so no pics this post and be patient with the layout of the blog.
U.P., U.P., and Away!
Well, we’re on our way home from our trip to the U.P. No internet though so I’ll post this next time I’ll connect. Yes Brandon, LiveWriter is better than using the web-based editor that Blogger provides. So what have we done the last couple of days? A lot!! Maybe not as much relaxing as Tom would have liked, but it won’t get much slower for a few days.
So, let’s backtrack and see what we’ve done:
Monday 
Tuesday
More stuff to do today! Went to Fayette, an old foundry town where they made pig iron for 25-50 years. It has a really protected harbor and there were a lot of boaters who had stopped by for the day or so. Maybe some day we’ll have a big enough boat to take tours like that. Wildlife alert: we saw a big yellowish-brown snake (probably 4-5 foot by the old hotel at the town…turns out it was a Fox snake. 
Nope, not making it up, that’s what it’s called.) The buildings were in good shape there and they’ve done some work restoring and rebuilding different parts of the town. The exhibits in the houses were neat too – one chronicled the work by EMU students to study the history of the house (and how they found morphine in the walls that were lowered down by ribbons). I really like going to old towns like that and just picturing the people going to and fro and kids running around or on their way to school. You know, now that I think of it, there wasn’t a church in the town (unless it has crumbled) and that’s an odd omission for those kind of historic towns. Maybe it wasn’t around long enough. 
After some ice cream we headed down the road to Kitch-iti-kipi (Big Spring). This was an unexpected find – I wouldn’t have planned on it if Mendy had mentioned it when we were telling them of our planned stops. Just past Indian Lake there’s a water hole (no bigger than a pond really) that stays a constant 45 degrees and is crystal clear with some really large trout. The color can best be described as that chemical blue/turquoise that you see when people dye/chemically treat their ponds. The have a large raft that is attached to a rope and you pile on there and someone propels it across with a large wheel and then back again. 
It’s nice on the raft because it has an opening in the middle and the roof blocks out the reflection that you normally get when you try to look in the water. The main feature (in addition to the clarity of the water) is the spring at the bottom of the Spring which “erupts” ground water out of the sand. It is reminiscent of the hot springs in Yellowstone (even kind of sulphury smelling) but for a completely different reason. After this stop we headed back to the apartment in Escanaba where I proceeded to whip Tom’s butt at pool and we played some Bid 500 with Grant and Bobbie. Late night to bed but we’ve got one more day until we head home. Wednesday
Last day in Escanaba. Played some more pool with Tom (and won…again…) and a little Bid 500 during the day. Sophie was not a happy camper today. Her second tooth must have been making a run for the surface and it was not doing wonders for her disposition. Bobbie volunteered to stay back with her so that Tom and I could see the town and head out to the Escanaba Country Club to see the course that Grant has been slaying. All in all, we didn’t golf that great. Tom really turned it around at the end but I was as inconsistent as ever, especially with my putting. I don’t know what my deal is with that. It was a nice course but the “trees are 90% air” theory doesn’t seem to hold up in the UP, it’s more like 60% or less because it seems like we all had our share of tree hits. After getting back we had another nice dinner, played a little more pool (may be the best use of a dining room ever), a little more Bid 500 (Tom and I won the vacation series 8-7), and then off to bed for our 4:30 wake up.
Thursday
Sophie’s being good so far today. Her tooth broke through the surface and is now trying to catch up to its neighbor. Hopefully now that they’re both through she’ll feel better. Poor kid. She slept until the bridge or so, which is what we'd hoped for. After hanging out at Burger King for an hour or so we hit the road again and she’s back to sleep so the hope is that she’ll nap until home. She could use the extra sleep because she didn’t sleep as well at night (or naps even) while we were on the trip. We were able to time most of our stops around her schedule so that she would nap in the car in between wherever we were going.
It’s crazy to think how much she’s grown already (I swear her legs grew an inch or two in the last couple of days). She’s a big fan of grabbing for things. An addition to my “Babies are like…” post I’d like to add that kids are like puppies (not sure if I mentioned that) because they both have chew toys and we put them in “cages” to go to sleep. Oh, and sharks, they’re like sharks too. Watch the Discovery channel and they’ll tell you that sharks don’t really mean to kill people, they just take a “test bite” (not the term they use but I’m drawing a blank now) to see if that surfer is food or not. Well, Sophie puts most everything in her mouth…but just for a “taste” and then she usually leaves it out after that. She has been reaching for her mat toys when she’s on her belly (which helped her roll from belly to back yesterday) and she’s still kicking non-stop on the ground trying to crawl somewhere. I have a feeling that she is going to be a tough one to contain once she starts moving.
Once we get back today we’re going to mow, unpack, clean and that kind of general stuff. Then I think we’re going to go see the garden and Grandma Vikki and pick up the Zeker-dog. Then we’ll swing by to see Grandma Ingrid and then back home to start getting things ready for Friday-Saturday. Tomorrow we’re heading down to the Tigers’ game with Jamie and Keri and staying over at their place. Saturday we head back and go to Charlie’s birthday party. But Sunday, that day should be a piece of cake!
Holiday…Vacation…Oh My!!
After Tahquamenon, we headed out to Munising and that’s where we’re at now. We landed at the Holiday Inn, it was a bit more, but it has a balcony overlooking the lake and we’re on the 3rd floor so I think it’s worth it (especially since we’re staying here since Sophie’s had such a busy day). She’s been good here, playing with her toys, working on scooching forward, and we went swimming down in the pool. It was pretty fun for her at the beginning and I took her duck for her to chase, which she did. But it got cold in the water and she got hungry so we headed back up to the room, ordered a pizza, fed her and now she’s sleeping (a bit early, but I think we’ll be OK).
